


Touch of Flame

by FireEye



Category: Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana
Genre: Gen, Twenty-Four Hours to Live, trope bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're cursed, sometimes there simply aren't any other options.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch of Flame

A string of moons hung across the night sky; paper lanterns, casting a scatter of multicolored light through the darkened trees. As she passed under the twisted shadows of boughs that were tangled and bare, she tried not to think of how alike to a funeral procession.

The path rose upward, above the line of dead trees and tufts of sharp, craggily grass that refused to die. Each step became heavier, until she was struggling to drag her feet through the dirt. She fell once, when her knees refused to carry her onward, and sat for an age.

It might have been easier to lie down and die.

Keeping her right arm tucked against her clavicle, she lurched forward on her left hand and her knees, half-dragging and half-pushing herself on through sheer force of stubborn will.

The old weathered grave sat alone within a hollow at the height of the hillock. Standing before it, tall and ominous and so strangely out of time, Larc watched her ascent with cold apathy. The light of the moons rippled where it passed through him, though as she got closer, he seemed to solidify.

Or perhaps that was her, beginning to fade.

Exhausted, she huddled at his feet. At this distance, shadows of shadoles flickered here and there in the air above the tomb. She struggled to her knees, staring up at motionless dragoon with her face contorted in anguish.

“It hurts,” she whimpered, and pulled her arm away from her chest, revealing it to be coated with blood. The wound was open and oozed fresh with every beat of her heart.

Amusement, rather than compassion, wrinkled at the corners of his eyes, and he smiled his wolfish grin. The only other tell of emotion was in the way the tip of his tail flicked.

“Did you think that you could run away?” he asked, “That Drakonis would simply forget about you?”

The Artificer wheezed in laughter, and her breath recovered in short gasps before she could speak again. “I had rather hoped,” she gasped, “that it was all a bad dream.”

Larc snorted.

Sol fell to her hands. For several moments longer, he let her suffer, before reaching down and pressing his clawed finger into the skin of her shoulder. Light broiled from the contact, enveloped her and dissipating in rolling waves.

The wound began to knit together, first sinew and then flesh. Though shuddering, her breath came easier. Still, she remained at his feet, studying the dirt beneath her fingers, as the implications of Drakonis’ curse made themselves clear.

Larc allowed her the respite, then hooked that same nail under her chin, forcing her to her feet. His wide smile deepened at the hatred in her eyes, the fire of a determined soul, beaten perhaps but not yet defeated.

Although he had delivered the mortal blow that kept her half-alive and bound to his service, they were not so unalike in that burning hatred of their common master.

“Come, then,” he told her. “We have much work to do, you and I.”

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\(o_O)/¯


End file.
